At length, on the sixth day, when I really began to feel anxious, an express announced that his lordship had arrived at a village, about fifty miles off, on his way home, wounded, and in great danger. I instantly broke up the convivial party, and set out to see him. To the imagination of a boy, as I was then, nothing could be more startling than the aspect of the habitation which now held the haughty Earl of Mortimer. After passing through a variety of dungeon-like rooms, for the house had once been a workhouse, or something of the kind, I was ushered into the chamber where the patient lay. The village doctor, and one or two of the wise people of the neighbourhood, who thought it their duty to visit a stranger, that stranger being a man of rank, were standing by; and the long faces of those persons, seconded by the professional shake of the doctor's head, told me, that they at least had no hope. It was not so with the sufferer himself, for he talked as largely and loftily of what he was to do within the next ten years, as if he was to survive the century. He still breathed rage and retribution against the Chevalier, and actually seemed to regard the lady's choice as a particular infraction of personal claims. He had pursued the fugitives day and night, until the pursuit threw him into a kind of fever. While under this paroxysm he had met the enamoured pair, but it was on their way from that forge on the Border where so many heavy chains have been manufactured. Useless as challenging was now, he challenged the husband. The parties met, and my father received a bullet in his body, while he had the satisfaction of lodging one in his antagonist's knee-pan. The Chevalier was doomed to waltz no more. But his bullet was fatal.
As I looked round the wretched chamber in which this bold, arrogant, and busy spirit was evidently about to breathe its last, Pope's lines on the most splendid roué of his day involuntarily and painfully shot across my recollection:
"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The walls of plaster, and the floor of dung;
The George and Garter dangling from the bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies; alas, how changed from him
The glass of fashion!"
I say no more of those scenes; a few days, only enough to collect the branches of the family round the bed, terminated every thing. Grief, they say, cannot exist where there is no love, but I was not inclined, just then, to draw subtle distinctions. I was grieved; and paid the last duties, without blame to myself, or, I hope, irreverence in the sight of others. The funeral was stately, and all was over.
Matters now took a new shape at the castle. My brother returned, to find himself its possessor. His journey had been equally unproductive with my unfortunate father's. By dint of bribing the postilions, he had even overpassed the fugitives on the Dover road. But, as he stopped to dine in Canterbury, where he had prepared a posse of constables for their reception, he had, unluckily, been accosted by an old London acquaintance, who had accidentally fixed his quarters there for a day or two, "seeking whom he might devour." The dinner was followed by a carouse, the carouse by a "quiet game," or games, which lasted till the next day; and when my brother rose, with the glow of a superb sunset giving him the first intimation that he was among the living, he made the discovery that he was stripped of the last shilling of five hundred pounds, and that the Frenchman and his prize had quietly changed horses at the same hotel half a dozen hours before.
The young forget quickly, but they feel keenly. The event which I had just witnessed threw a shade over me, which, in the want of any vigorous occupation, began to affect my health. I abjured the sports of the field, for which, indeed, I had never felt much liking. I rambled through the woods in a kind of dreamy idleness of mind, which took but little note of any thing, time included. As mendicants sell tapes and matches to escape the imputation of mendicancy, I carried a pencil and portfolio, and seemed to be sketching venerable oaks and patches of the picturesque, while my mind was wandering from Line to Pole. But in this earth no one can be singular with impunity. The gentlemen were "convinced" that my meditations were heavy with unpaid college bills; and the ladies, from high to low, from "Tilburina, mad in white satin," to her "confidant, mad in white linen," were all of opinion that some one among their peerless selves had destroyed the "five wits of young Mr Marston." I could have fallen on them with a two-handed sword; but as the massacre of the sex was not then in my power, I had only to escape.
There were higher matters to move me. Clouds were gathering on the world; the times were fitful; the air was thick with rumours from abroad; the sleep of the Continent was breaking up, and Europe lay in the anxious and strange expectancy in which some great city might see the signs of a coming earthquake, without the power of ascertaining at what moment, or from what quarter, its foundations were to be flung up in sight of the sun.We were then in the first stage of the French Revolution!
I resolved to linger and be libelled no more; and being ushered, by appointment, into the libraryfor the new master was already all etiquetteI promptly stated my wishes, and demanded my portion, to try my fortune in the world.
Our conference, if it had but little of the graces of diplomacy, had much more than its usual decision. It was abrupt and unhesitating. My demand had evidently taken his "lordship" by surprise. He started from the magisterial chair, in which he was yet to awe so many successions of rustic functionaries, and with a flushed cheek asked "Whether I was lunatic, or supposed him to be so?"
"Neither the one nor the other," was my answer. "But, to waste life here is out of the question. I demand the means of entering a profession."
"Are you aware, sir, that our interest is lost since the last change of ministers? that my estate is loaded with encumbrances? that every profession is overstocked? and what can you do in the crowd?"
"What others have donewhat I should do in a crowd in the streetspush some aside, get before others; if made way for, be civil; if resisted, trample; it has been the history of thousands, why not mine?"
The doctrine was as new to this son of indulgence, as if I had propounded the philosopher's stone. But his courage was exhausted by a controversy perhaps longer than he had ever ventured on before. He walked to the glass, adjusted his raven ringlets, and having refreshed his spirits with the contemplation, enquired, with a smile which made the nearest possible approach to a sneer, whether I had any thing more to say?
I had more, and of the kind that least suited his feelings. I demanded "my property."
The effect of those two words was electrical. The apathy of the exquisite was at an end, and in a voice of the most indignant displeasure, he rapidly demanded whether I expected money to fall from the moon? whether I was not aware of the expense of keeping up the castle? whether I supposed that my mother's jointure and my sisters' portions could ever be paid without dipping the rent-roll deeper still? and, after various and bitter expostulation, "What right had I to suppose that I was worth the smallest coin of the realm, except by his bounty?"
One query answered them all. "My lord, is it not true that I am entitled to five thousand pounds?"
"Five thousand ?" what word was to fill up the interval I can only guess. But the first lesson which a man learns at the clubs is, to control his temper when its display is not likely to be attended with effect. He saw that I stood his gaze with but few symptoms of giving way, and he changed his tactics with an adroitness that did honour to his training. Approaching me, he held out his hand. "Charles, why should we quarrel about trifles? I was really not acquainted with the circumstance to which you allude, but I shall look into it without delay. Pray, can you tell me the when, the where, the how?"